How does Harper Lee make the trial scene dramatically effective in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird?

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How does Harper Lee make the trial scene dramatically effective in the novel ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’?

In the novel ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ Harper Lee makes the trial scene dramatically effective in many ways.

        To begin with, she uses the presentation of character very well throughout the chapter. She carefully describes each character so we can understand their background and reasons for their actions. For example, she very frequently makes reference to Bob Ewell and explains how he is a very poor white man who is uneducated, she does this by using Scouts description of him, and also by using direct speech, such as ‘I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella’. Language like ‘ruttin’’ and ‘black nigger’ indicate that he has a lack of education. He lives in effectively a dump and is very rude; he is the poorest of the poor whites. He is the man accusing Tom Robinson, a black man of raping his daughter Mayella, but the way Harper Lee represents Tom Robinson is completely the opposite of Bob Ewell. He is much more admirable than Bob Ewell and is far more intelligent. By presenting Tom in such a way causes the reader to feel sympathy for Tom. This together is effective because throughout the scene we are able to compare Tom Robinson and Bob Ewell, which helps us to understand each character and which gives a bigger insight to what is going on. If you ever read a book and you do not know someone’s background or don’t have any information about the character it is very difficult to get into because you do not really know what the character is like, or the characters you like or dislike, so Harper Lee does very well in presenting each character individually and contrasting them to another character.

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Atticus’s speech is particularly effective in this scene because it uses many different persuasive devices and techniques. It features many Tricolons, such as ‘all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral, that all Negro men are not to be trusted’ and ‘there is not a person in the is courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire’. These are effective because they make you think of morals and how you shouldn’t just blame someone or follow what is ...

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